Today, the dog barked, the postman rang the bell, and there in a neat box from Japan was my 1/700 Trumpeter Enterprise! With the recent Yorktown, a stalled build of Trumpeter's Hornet, and an un-built boxing of Tamiya's Yorkown, it's time for a little comparison. There is already an excellent post on these pages (can't find it though- HELP MODS)...so I'm hoping to add a few helpful notes.

First, the new Enterprise hull is the same part as the recent Trumpeter Yorktown hull- exact same i.d. numbers in the "floor" of the molding. It has also been noted that CV-6 is in a late '42 fit, based on the included weapons. Don't know what that means for the molded-on degaussing cable for CV-6.

The CV-5 plans from HNSA were downloaded and the 4th deck (closest to the waterline) was scaled to 1/700 and printed. Following is a shot of the waterlines of (L to R): Trumpeter's CV-5/6, Trumpeter's CV-8 (corrected), the Trumpy CV-8 waterline plate, Tamiya's CV-5 waterline plate, and scaled CV-5 plans:

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The new hulls compare very favorably with the scaled plans. The older CV-8 hull is about 2.5 mm wider, and has less undercut at the stern, not just due to the slight change in sectioned level, but due to the curvature of the hull. My Hornet copy was boxed in 2010; the waterline plate has a date of 2005 molded in.

The Hornet hull has a sharper prow than the recent CV-5/6mold, similar to Tamiya's offering for the class (Tamiya is to the left, dark grey):

After a couple of hours of fiddling, using 0.030" styrene sheet and the scale plans, and cutting the first 3 cross braces out of the CV-8 hull, it was possible to draw in the hull sides. Working from the bow, the "waterline insert" was clamped and secured about 1-2 inches at a time with thin cement. The cross-braces were re-installed at slightly adjusted locations to add rigidity. The hull sides are thin enough, and Trumpeter's plastic is soft enough to then correct for the warping or twisting outward of the upper hull edges which resulted. While significant, this too was largely corrected so that there are no apparent major issues with fitment of the hull sides and flight deck. The hull remained flat at the waterline. All told, I think now the Hornet will build into a very nice model, without the distraction of the "tanker" hull form. An in-progress shot follows:

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The correction pulled the hull sides at the waterline in by about 6 mm (1/4") the hull is sitting on the unaltered waterline plate. Although there are some strain marks where the hull was flexed back, under the 5" gun tubs, a touch with a file and a little bit of dull-coated 5-O will hide the surgical scars well enough. It does not look to be possible to use a CV-5/6 hull and CV-8 upperworks; the construction and dimensions of the decks and bulkheads differ. But, I'm pretty pleased with the fix so far.

All told, it's great to be able to put all 3 Yorktown class sisters together from a consistent starting point. Hornet is now off the Shelf of Doom, and back on the bench!

"Tomorrow is the most important thing in life. Comes into us at midnight very clean. It's perfect when it arrives and it puts itself in our hands. It hopes we've learned something from yesterday." John Wayne

This is good news as per your comparison. After the initial release of the Hornet and how, to me, it looked like a hull from a freighter, I had issues with wanting to try anything from Trumpeter that was related to a Yorktown class carrier. Scott

For those interested in doing the Trumpeter 1/700 Yorktown and Enterprise full hull, I test fit the Academy Enterprise lower hull onto the Yorktown kit, and it's nearly a snap-fit. It actually looks like a lot of the parts are easily swappable between the two kits. There is a slight discrepancy in the flight deck length, with the Enterprise deck being shorter, but I think it can be lengthened by the required 1 or 2mm easily enough. The Enterprise flight deck is much better than the Trumpeter Yorktown deck, which is why I'm looking at some of these parts swaps.

_________________We like our history sanitized and theme-parked and self-congratulatory, not bloody and angry and unflattering. - Jonathan Yardley